The Concorde luxury jet flies again

The supersonic Concorde jet was only in passenger service for 27 years after its first commercial flight on Jan. 21, 1976. According to Air Live News, the Concorde’s appeal was that flights were frequently only one-third as long as on regular planes. The jets would dart back and forth across the Atlantic, to Mexico and Latin America, and from Europe to Asia. The fastest-ever crossing from New York to London was completed in 2 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds. The speed came with a price, though. Tickets were usually five times more expensive than regular flight tickets on a 747. By the time the Concorde stopped flights in 2003, tickets from New York to Europe cost just under $10,000. The airline industry suffered economically in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The appeal of the Concorde also dropped after an Air France crash in Paris in 2000. These hits prompted both Air France and British Airways to retire the jets in 2003.